Folding @ Home: My Setup
July 14th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
In the last weeks, I’ve spent lots of time optimizing my folding farm and thinking about future upgrades, and I thought I might show off my setup to the public, and show how easy and fun it can be to start folding and cure them diseases.
As illustrated in the wonderful graphic below, my folding setup is composed of mainly 5 elements.
Let’s go through the elements one by one.
- 1. This is Annabel, my fastest folder. The particularity of this machine is that somehow, despite that it is not the most powerful machine in the house, it’s the one churning out the most points. Despite 400 less mhz, half the L2 cache and slower memory, it manages to outperform Fr0stbyte, the strongest machine in my household, by about 25%. Could it be that it’s running Linux? My guess is that the OS probably does play a huge role: At equal clocks, we could estimate that Linux SMP would probably yield 30-40% more points than Windows SMP.Annabel runs Linux SMP very close to 24/7, it’s only downtimes being reboots and component swaps. She also serves as an HTTP, FTP, SSH, Bittorrent server and NAS node, serving 2 entire hard drives as well as 3-4 other folders on the network via SMB. She runs on Fedora 9 “Sulphur” x64.
- 2. My first ever computer, Fr0stbyte, is the second biggest folder in the house. It’s got the most elaborate cooling too, so it’s overclocked O’ plenty: the e6750 which runs stock at 2.66 mhz was given a healthy ~800 mhz boost and now runs at 3.4 ghz, all day, everyday, or almost. Fr0stbyte runs on Windows XP Pro x64, and folds with the Windows Nvidia GPU2 folding client. It used to do SMP, but at about 5000 PPD, the GPU client yeilds much more.
- 3. Not much to say about this box… I’ve been folding on this machine ever since I started folding, but at less than 200 PPD it’s pretty much useless. It’s been folding a tad more since I swapped the 1.7 ghz Celeron for a 2.2 ghz Pentium 4, but it’s still one of the second slowest folder around my house.
- 4. Last one is my father’s laptop. DO NOT FOLD ON A LAPTOP UNLESS IT IS COOLED CORRECTLY! This one happens to be a 17 incher, and the temps stay ok, which is the only reason while I still have a client running on it. It runs only a couple of hours per day and it sports a single core Turion, so yeild is minimal.
- 5. My pride and joy in this whole setup is my monitoring setup. It all starts with Fr0stbyte running Fahmon, the folding at home log reader and monitor. I just run Fahmon on my main box because I had some problems solving depencies for installing it in linux, but I could very well have run it on any of my other boxes. Fahmon happens to have an “export for web” option which generates an HTML page every time it updates, for use with a web server to display stats for the world to see. Since I have my web server on a network share on my main rig, I just configure Fahmon to shoot it’s web stuff to the web server’s network drive mount, and voila. If I see that a box is considered idle by fahmon, then I SSH to my server for some hot pinging action, and I reboot (or call a relative and tell him/her to reboot) the box in need.
Sure, I’ve seen people with way sicker farms, but I AM at rank 162 of the OCN folding team, so mine can’t possibly be that bad. Remember, you don’t need monster machines to get folding for the cure. Check out my other articles on folding, (How to fold on linux and a short rambling on how to optimize your setup), and put those spare cycles to use.
Canadian iPhone Plans Are a Ripoff
June 30th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
As we all know, the second gen iPhone is coming out July 11th, and this is where us igloo dwelling Canadians are finally getting the chance to get our paws on some hot 3g enabled and oh so cool iPhone. Buttt…. there’s a but.
We already all know that Canadians are getting grossly overcharged for mobile voice and data services, but with the iPhone, things are getting worst. In comparison to what AT&T offers in the US, the iPhone plans that Fido/Rogers offer are ridiculously expensive. I was planning on getting an iPhone myself as my next phone following the announcement that Fido, a Roger’s owned subsidiary, would be offering the Jesus-phone too, but after peeking at the rates, I’ll stick to buying a cheap Nettop and carrying it around. Who the hell is going to pay over 60$ per month for a basic plan here when an unlimited plan in the states it goes for 30$?
The way I’m seeing this, either Apple, Rogers, or both are trying to screw off what they consider a small market. It’s about time that mobile carriers stop treating us like shit and give us plans that make some sense. For people like me who have been patiently waiting for a no-hacks-required iPhone in Canada, this is a giant ball of snot spat right to our faces.
I encourage you to sign the RuinediPhone.com petition for better iPhone plans, and to spread the word on your own web property. In this era where it’s all about coupling data and mobility, we have to fight back. Show some support!
Dell Goes UMPC, Pwns Competition
June 21st, 2008 § 2 Comments
Dell just pulled out the big guns and is aiming then straight at Asus, MSI, and other UMPC segment contenders. The new Dell E, and E slim, two new laptops designs, where just announced to Engadget. The E takes on the super-budget laptop segment, while the E slim takes on the Apple Macbook Air, the IBM X300, and other ultraslim laptops.
To be honest, I don’t a flying crap about the E slim, I like my stuff normal-sized and not overpriced, but the standard E looks like the perfect UMPC to me. First off, it’s just as compact as it’s competitors, like the EEE901 and the MSI Wind, it sports the fancy new super efficient Intel Atom (no way I’m buying an underpowered M), but has features that the others don’t have. Unlike the Wind, the E has more interesting flash based storage options, not the totally useless 80 gig standard issue platter drive. If you need more storage on such a little laptop, don’t get anal about it and get yourself an 8 gig SDHC card, but nowadays, everybody should be considering network attached storage for storing their files.
Battery life is also most likely to be better, since the E ships with a 4 cell 35 Whr bat rated for about 5 hours of use. 3-cell batteries on the Wind? With a platter drive? I mean come on MSI.
Also, the E has the lowest planned MSRP yet, at a buck under 300$USD, which is just slightly more expensive than an iPod touch, but with a crapload more horsepower. Personally, I think it’s the hottest of them all too.
Since we’re dealing with Dell, I’m thinking there might be a few customization options available too. Choice of color is confirmed, but a 2 gig memory kit would make a little web-browsing bomb out of this thing. OS is also to your choice with either Dell’s very own modified Ubuntu or Windows XP.
For somebody like me who has a more powerful rig to do all the fun stuff, video and photo editing, gaming and all, this is perfect. It seems that both the MSI Wind and EEEPc are trying to make a UMPC into a functional everyday machine.. when all most consumers want (at least the geeky ones) is a stripped down machine that can surf the web, run Pidgin and hax0r teh noobs on the go. I don’t want 80 gigs of slow disk space when I have 1 terabyte of NAS and a gigabit network, but I do want a super-light notebook so I can blog live from the shitter.
The only thing I would like to see is 802.11n connectivity replacing the pretty useless 0.3 Mpixel webcam. Besides that, I’m in love: I’m grabbing one for sure on the release date set to August.
Read the original Engadget article and check out the gallery.
Folding at Home Nvidia GPU Client Leaked!
June 16th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
This is fresh off of Overclock.net. Benchmarkreviews, which apparently has a member who had access to the closed beta of the Nvidia GPU client that was planned for next week, leaked the totality of the new client files on their website. Thanks to “Bowman”, from OCN, the files are now mirror at many different locations.
I have just install the new client, and the folding power is CRAZY! My overclocked 8800 GT does 2400 PPD according to FAHmon, and that’s in addition to the 1600 PPD that the SMP client yeilds. 4000 PPD for a non-Quad-core box running Windows is simply amazing.
I’m currently testing out running two GPU clients in parallel, I’ll notify if that works out.
You can download the files here, here, and here, and share it with the world by digging it here. Have fun!
ACTA: Be Aware, Fight it
June 12th, 2008 § 1 Comment
If you haven’t heard about the ACTA, prepare for a surprise. The G8 countries, amongst which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States are planning on voting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on the 34th G8 summit which is planned for mid-July in Japan.
This act is downright outrageous. In an effort to pull the plug on piracy, the act plans to enforce copyright laws even more strictly, by giving border officials the ability to check digital devices for illegal data to intercept pirates at the border, without a warrant. The act would also force ISPs to fork over their customer’s info to law enforcement groups, also without a warrant, and outlaw certain privacy tools that pirates are using to secure their stuff, PeerGuardian, SafePeer and other tools of the like from what I understand.
Practically, this may mean that your laptop may be searched by a border agent for illegal files, which includes legally ripped music and movies, the same way they search people for drugs. Having ripped files included in the act means that any MP3 player could be considered illegal at the border, no matter what you have on it. Fines and jail are waiting for those who dare crossing borders with copy-written content.
Not only is this blatantly offending the freedom that we Westerners enjoy, but it also means that somewhere and somehow, anti-piracy movements are stuffing the pockets of important politicians to in turn fill theirs. This war on piracy is becoming a real joke: we should give away our means of anonymity online, our privacy at the borders and at the terminal to help protect big industries? No we shouldn’t, and in fact we have to fight back.
The New Freedom calls it the biggest digital rights issue yet, politicians are calling it disgraceful, and now you too have to do something about it. Get the word going, make your opinion known, heck, mail your opinion to the media if you have to. The tricky thing is that this act is going to be created and signed at the G8 by a very limited group of people, so there’s nothing your local help can do to help concretely, but let him know how you feel, link for articles, be concerned. This act is a direct violation of our rights, and has to be stopped, and putting the pressure is our job.
Manic Monday One Word Meme
June 10th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
It’s this time again! I’ve been tagged by Marko, so here are my 1 word answers to 31 short questions.
1. Where is your cell phone? Pockets.
2. Your significant other? Somewhere.
3. Your hair? Semi-mullet.
4. Your mother? Banker.
5. Your father? Architect.
6. Your favorite thing? Internetz.
7. Your dream last night? None.
8 Your favorite drink? MD.
9. Your dream/goal? Cheddar.
10. The room you’re in? Cave.
11. Your hobby? Many.
12. Your fear? Cellophane.
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? City.
14. What you’re not? Girl.
15. Muffins? Always.
16. One of your wish list items? Powertools.
17. Where you grew up? TR.
18. The last thing you did? Awaken.
19. What are you wearing? Nothing.
20. Favorite Gadget? Camera.
21. Your pets? Smelly.
22. Your computer? Rocks.
23. Your mood? Mood?
24. Missing someone? Sure.
25. Your car? None.
26. Something you’re not wearing? ;-P
27. Favorite store? NCIX.
28. Like someone? Sure.
29. Your favorite color? Blue.
30. When is the last time you laughed? Now.
31. Last time you cried? Induced.
*Looks at blogroll* Eh…. I tag all my invisible blogger friends! Yeah! Corin you slacker! Get your ass doing this thing!
I really got to do something about that blogroll 
Logitech G5: Probably the Best All-Around Mouse
June 6th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Today, I reviewed my Logitech G5 mouse, which I’ve been using for about a year now.
Out of the packaging, you know this mouse means business. The packaging, while on par with other comparable mice, is eye-catching, the only aspect that really impressed me is the little tin box of the weights.The mouse itself looks great. I don’t know if the newer version chips with any other paint job than the one I have, but the crackle black on blue background looks great, and feels even better. Unlike my friend’s first revision G7 which I’ve used lots of times, this mouse doesn’t feel disgusting when your hands are moist from gaming marathons.
The build quality is superb, and I wasn’t expecting anything less from a Logitech product. While the mouse’s body is quite light without the weight cartridge, is still feels solid. Also, the sleeving on the mouse’s cable is a very nice touch.
MR.com In for a Rough Ride
June 1st, 2008 § 2 Comments
Sadly, dued to my bricked wrist and money issues, I am not currently in a position to renew my hosting plan with Josh, who has been hosting my blog from the start, about 2 years ago.
In order for my blog to not totally go down, I managed to get WP working on my home server after lots of messing around. You can now reach my site at http://max302.ath.cx/. Be aware that this situation is temporary, which makes it even more frustrating. I’m losing all my linkage, my pagerank, risking my domain, and getting a big chunk of my web presence taken away, which is not fun, specially since I sent out resumes linking to my site to potential employers.
“Oh, how leet is that guy, he has a site… *loads page* *MaximeRousseau.com is unavailable* Wow, just another nooblet.”
Not fun. I’ll be trying to buy my domain back as soon as I can and point it to my home… but downtime still sucks.
Domain is set to expire on June 4th. Wish me luck.
A Lesson In Photography: Subject/Frame Parallelism
May 31st, 2008 § Leave a Comment
I’ve received my D40 just a while back, so I still consider myself a photography noob, but in the ~300 pics that I have taken so far, I’ve notice some aspects of photography that I’d read about on the internet really have a huge impacts on my shots. One of those silly yet very important aspect is the parallelism between the subject of it’s surroundings and the edges of the picture.
I’m guessing that it’s because of my cast, but some of my pictures taken in a skate park photo shoot earlier this week are slightly out of axis, as a result of holding my camera slightly angled clockwise. As a result, some of the shots look like this one.
I really think this shot is pretty cool, but what bugs me is that the lip of the ramp, on which the rider’s rear wheel is lying, is not parallel to the bottom of the picture. Being out of axis, it give me the impression that the picture was taken on crooked terrain, and I don’t exactly know how to express myself on this, but it’s like there is no reference to what is the X axis and what is Y. I think it just looks funky.
Now I’m not saying that you must always align the edges of your photo with something in your picture, I’ve seen many good pictures using creative shooting angles, but you can’t do things halfway. You’re either using an extreme angle, or either you’re aligning it correctly. It’s kind of like wearing a cap: in some cases, wearing it sides may make you look cool, but wearing it only slightly out of angle will only make you look retarded. Interesting simile, eh?
Now take a look at this picture now.
In this picture, the right fence posts is directly perpendicular to X, and parallel to Y, and cutting through it at a 90 degrees angle is the white line, right in front of the kid. It gives the picture a structure, makes it more coherent according to me.
This isn’t much, but I’m still learning… More pics, thoughts and tuts coming soon.
[OCN] Nvidia Turning Friends Into Enemies?
May 25th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Everybody’s in the fight for GP-GPUs… and it makes me question Nvidia’s ability to survive in such a market, specially when all it’s CPU producing friends are openly declaring war.
Nvidia is acting weird lately. Apart from keeping the bar high in the GPU sector, Nvidia seems to be wanting to take over something else, the CPU sector. I’m a bit confused as if they want to do so using CUDA and GPU-powered applications to entirely eradicate the need for a powerful CPU and build crappy replacements of their own, or just trying to beat Intel at their own game, plain and simple, by producing super high end chips.
I might be totally wrong, but in the case that this “can of whoop ass” turns out to be a flop, this may very well be the end of Nvidia as we know it……
